Alleged serial rapist denied bail

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WINDHOEK – ‘He must not get bail. Because what he did to me is bad.’ This is what the 10-year-old girl who was genitally mutilated and defiled last week told her father before he left for the Katutura Magistrate’s Court where the man who had raped her appeared yesterday morning.

According to the father, she is well aware of what is happening and knew where her parents were going.
Sadly, the father said, the girl is having flashbacks of what happened. “She will stand still and look in the direction (not far from their home) where the incident happened and hold her temples,” said the father outside the court yesterday. He said the family will be attending counselling at Katutura hospital to deal with the trauma.

The father also shared that the Grade 2 pupil has been discharged from hospital but will only resume classes next year as she needs more medical treatment because of the severity of her injuries.

The suspect, Gewen Gawa-Nab, 25, who has 10 criminal cases including six rape and attempted rape cases pending, appeared in court and was denied bail. Gawa-Nab’s family who New Era spoke to also want the court not to grant him bail.

The case was postponed to December 5. During the court proceedings the emotional mother stared at Gawa-Nab, looked down and shook her head in disbelief.

Just shortly after the court proceedings the mother broke down and was comforted by friends from the neighbourhood. “Why did he do this to my daughter? I can’t take it,” the emotional mother broke down in court.
The father added Gawa-Nab should remain in custody and that he should not be granted bail. “I can never forgive a person like that. Maybe God will,” he said.

Gawa-Nab was arrested on Monday at Havana in an intelligence-led operation after fleeing into the mountains after committing the act. He cut the 10-year-old girl’s genitals before he violently defiled her along the Daan Viljoen road where the children were walking towards farm Satan Logh.

On Tuesday, Gawa-Nab appeared in court for another rape case involving an adult woman from Havana informal settlement.

He was out on N$1 500 bail, which his father had paid.
Yesterday, Gawa-Nab’s father Petrus Kamibeb, who works in Okombahe, suggested his son goes for mental check-ups because of the crimes he committed.

The father had previously bailed his son on four occasions, on three rape charges, and an arson case in Rehoboth. Kamibeb paid a total of N$4 500.

Asked to give a brief background of the son, Kamibeb said Gawa-Nab’s mother passed away when he was seven years old just at the time he started school. And because Kamibeb frequently travelled with work he took Gawa-Nab to stay with his aunt in Rehoboth who raised him. He said Gawa-Nab dropped out of school in Grade 7 at the time he became troublesome. “I only saw he was ‘getting out of the way’ and I took him with me to Okombahe.”

In addition, the father explained that he paid bail for the son because the court granted it.
“Or else he will remain there. I tried talking to him about the things he is doing. I wanted to take him with me to Okombahe to look for a job but he said he wants to go to my mother. It is alcohol and the drugs that make him do such things,” the father added.

In addition, his grandmother Emma Abrahams said Gawa-Nab has three children and alleged he is dating two nieces from one house at farm Satan Logh.

According to the little girl’s aunt whose name can’t be mentioned and who lives at a farm near Satan Logh, where Gawa- Nab lived with the grandmother, she doesn’t know the suspect but all she heared is to ‘watch out for Gewen the rapist’. She told New Era that it is alleged that he uses drugs too.

“He tried raping one of the neighbours’ child and two other women at the surrounding farm,” the aunt narrated.